Practice this morning was nice and warm. The heater was on, as usual, and My Gift got up a little late, after going out last night for a Valentine’s dinner with The Frenchman. By the time she was ready to practice, I was finishing padahastasana. I figured it was was easiest just to start from the beginning with My Gift, which is what I did.She did the suryas and called it a day. They were good suryas, though–I notice that I am particularly mindful when I do them with her. She has (and has always had, every since she was a baby) a very still, calm kind of energy. I always think of her as an earthy, kapha kind of person. I am much more manic than she, much more inclined to overexert.Anyhow, I am always both pleased and perplexed by her ability to let things be. Late night? Just do the suryas and get on with the day. That makes perfect sense to her. Me? Um, the first time I did primary, I struggled through the whole darn thing. The Cop, too. We have very forceful energy. First series? How long will it take me to master this? Hey, what’s second series? I wonder if I can do that. And what’s in third?I have to remember to let My Gift approach this however she likes. My downfall is expecting other people to think/act/feel like I do. And I come from a family where it was normal to expect everyone in your family to share your feelings on everything. As if we were all supposed to be the same, because we were related by blood.Anyhow, practice was good today. The left knee reminds me that it is a little overstretched in the LCL, but that’s about it, issue-wise. I decided to just use the Manduka and skip the rug (which I usually put down for seated poses). It was an interesting experience. The stickiness of the mat made me have to jump through more carefully, since I couldn’t play off the slip ‘n slide factor. And the stickiness offered some nice resistance as I moved into down dog each time–an opportunity to do a little core work. I’m getting both arms through regularly on garbha p. Usually can only bend one, though–for some reason, trying to bend the second arm is the limit of the pressure my calves are willing to accept. So I sit there, kind of pathetically marooned for five breaths, then I free my arms and do the rolling. I’ll get Volleyball Guy to clue me in on how I am supposed to progress when he gets back from Manila.And backbends are…well, sorta better. I think. Maybe 😉 Or probably not. I had the brilliant idea to put a strap around my legs to hold them parallel when I go up. Works like a charm, in the sense that I can get a clue as to the structure of the pose. The catch of course is that I have no kinesthetic awareness, somehow, when I am upside down and inside out. So I am hoping that pure repitition will teach my body something my mind simply can’t seem to fathom. One thing of note: my left knee really hurts when I come down out of the backbends. I must twist my knee on the way down. Very weird, and I can’t quite figure it out. How come everything makes perfect sense to me, physically, in handstands and pincha mayurasana and headstand, but I can’t figure out where I am in space during backbends?